The present invention relates to vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) networks and more particularly to selection of a scene for persisted presentation on a display used by a participant in such networks.
Efforts have been underway for some time to establish standards for and to develop technology that would allow drivers within limited geographic areas to “talk” to each other by participating in ad hoc vehicle-to-vehicle networks in which audio, video and other data is shared among participating vehicles. It is envisioned that each vehicle participating in such a vehicle-to-vehicle network would be equipped with video cameras for capturing video data both for use within the participating vehicle and for sharing with other vehicles participating in the network as well as microphones for capturing audio data that could be shared directly with other vehicles independently of existing communications networks, such as cellular telephone networks.
According to one proposal, data would be shared among vehicles using a Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) wireless protocol operating in the 5.9 Gigahertz band that would support direct vehicle-to-vehicle communications over a relatively short range (100 meters-300 meters). The effective size of the network implemented using the DSRC would be significantly greater than the direct vehicle-to-vehicle maximum range, however, since each vehicle could relay data received from another vehicle to still other vehicles within its range. Relayed data could “hop” one vehicle at the time to vehicles progressively further away from the vehicle that was the source of the data.
Vehicle-to-vehicle networks will serve the general purpose of making participating drivers more aware of what is happening around them. Such networks would permit drivers to alert other drivers of traffic slowdowns, road hazards and approaching emergency vehicles. Such networks could also enable emergency vehicle personnel to alert drivers to their presence, letting alerted drivers anticipate the appearance of the emergency vehicles and more quickly clear paths for them.
While giving a participating driver the chance to select any of the many video feeds that may exist in a vehicle-to-vehicle network at a given time clearly can be useful to the driver, situations will invariably arise in which the driver will want to select and maintain a particular scene, which can present a problem in a vehicle-to-vehicle network. In a “static” video network, the position of a video camera relative to a particular scene is generally fixed so that a single video camera can continue to capture a particular scene for an extended period of time. A vehicle-to-vehicle network isn't static. A video camera capturing a particular scene may be mounted on a vehicle that is moving toward or away from the scene at a high rate of speed.
While the driver interested in the scene can attempt to manually find another camera that is currently showing the scene of interest, there is a concern that a driver will become distracted by having to review available video feeds one at a time until one is found showing the scene of interest and then having to frequently repeat the process as successive video cameras only briefly capture the scene of interest. There is a need to enable a driver to lock onto a particular scene for presentation on a display without having to repeatedly review images captured by different video cameras.